Bible Strands
Psalms 78:56
But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the congregation of Israel while recounting God’s past act of driving out nations and settling the tribes in their allotted inheritance. This historical review immediately precedes a description of their spiritual failure.
The words — וַיְנַסּוּ (va-yenassu) means they put to the test, and וַיַּמְרוּ (va-yammru) means they rebelled against. These verbs describe the active defiance of the people toward God Most High.
The thread — This pattern of testing God and breaking His commands recurs in Judges 2:11, Deuteronomy 31:16, and Deuteronomy 32:15. Each reference documents Israel’s cycle of abandoning divine instruction for idolatry or self-reliance.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition of the direct link between testing God and failing to keep His decrees. It requires the reader to confront the reality that repeated spiritual infidelity produces a predictable, destructive outcome.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies:
Cross-references
- Judges 2:11 And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.
- Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.
- Deuteronomy 32:15 But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
- 2 Kings 17:7 All this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods
- Nehemiah 9:25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.
- Psalms 78:40 How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!
- Ezekiel 16:15 But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking.